Consistent offense pushes Hawks ahead of JV Lions

The JV Lion baseball team got off to a solid start on Monday, but the Red Oak Hawks kept plugging away with run production throughout as they delivered a 10-2 win.
Andrew Brown’s single in the fifth broke up a potential no-hitter while teammate Trevor Wilhoite made the best contact of the night for Ennis with a triple. Gil Kalinec pitched six of the seven innings, allowing seven hits with four walks and four strikeouts.
“Red Oak’s pitching was pretty good,” said coach Vance Barton.
“We didn’t hit the ball well enough to really get going offensively and our focus wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been.”
The Hawks took advantage of Kalinec issuing walks to the initial three batters he faced in the first with a two-RBI triple, then went up 3-0 on a fielding error. Meanwhile, the Lions achieved a feat rarely seen on the diamond – two successful rundowns in the same inning. Austin Fry and Dylan Macon made good on the first one just shy of second base while Kalinec and Wilhoite got their man on the third-base line.
“All of the guys involved did well to execute on those opportunities, especially when you’re able to get a runner heading home,” Barton said.
“Gil had a slow start, but once he warmed up he had several good innings where he caught some kids off guard [at the plate].”
Ennis pulled within 3-2 in the bottom of the inning without a hit by scoring on a couple of passed balls after Fry and Kalinec drew walks. Kalinec had one of his better innings in the Red Oak second. After a leadoff single, the next three Hawks went down on great defensive plays by center fielder Jordan Carrillo, second baseman Macon and shortstop Wilhoite – as each Lion had to either make a running grab or cover a lot of ground to get in position for the catch.
“Trevor and Jordan were both bright spots defensively out there tonight,” the coach said.
Though catcher Chace Durham and Wilhoite combined to throw a runner out in the Red Oak third, the visitors went up 5-2 thanks to a couple of errors. The Hawks made it 6-2 in their fifth with three hits before Kalinec pulled a couple of bases-loaded strikeouts out of his hat.
Ennis loaded the bases in its fifth with two outs as Aaron Armstrong (error), Joel Cox (hit by pitch) and Brown (single) all got on board, but the Hawks forced a popout to get out of danger. Brown’s weak fly behind the pitcher’s mound did the trick to get him on base.
“You tell the guys to put the ball in play because you never know what’s going to happen,” Barton said.
“Andrew caught them off guard to give us a great scoring chance.”
Cox made a tremendous running grab in right field during the Hawk sixth as Wilhoite drilled a triple to right-center in the bottom of the inning.
“Joel’s catch was definitely one of our bright spots in the field,” Barton said.
“Trevor does a good job of forcing defenses to make a play in the leadoff spot.”
When Armstrong took over for Kalinec on the hill in the seventh, Red Oak scored its last three runs off two hits and two errors.
The JV Lions will now host Waxahachie in a doubleheader on Saturday at noon.

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on Mar 26 2008. Filed under News.
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